A Pastor in The Northwest

How the outside smells after a good rain. Playing my guitar with brand new strings. When my wife Jackie reaches for my hand to hold. The first sip of a great Oregon Pinot Noir. When I hear my grandson Elias laugh. The tug of my heart when I see someone care for someone else. Walking through falling cherry blossoms. Letting the river move me while I'm on a paddleboard. Insight from a passage of the Bible I'd never noticed before. The sound of Pacific Ocean waves hitting the sand. Photo by Alexas_Fotos on Unsplash

Lately I have been paying attention to the trend of younger people using AI as a companion. The numbers are staggeringly high - over 70%! Teenagers are turning to machines for friendship instead of their peers. Whoa. A whole generation choosing the artificial over the real. As one TED talk I watched pointed out, we would be wise to protect human connection - even when it is messy. Resistance literacy - the act of showing up and being human in a world telling us not to be - is crucial. I think this is where a healthy church family can be an antidote for our modern, AI addicted world. We can walk together in this life alive and vibrant and messy and disappointing, but as a family, loving one another. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. -Romans 12:10 NIV Link to that TED talk by Bryony Cole Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I was thinking today about the beginning of what we refer to as "The Lord's Prayer" as recorded by Matthew in the famous sermon on the mount.  It begins like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name... To pray like this, then, we acknowledge that we are part of a family and a community of followers and we are God's children.  Not only this, but as His children, we honor and lift up His name and order our lives to bring Him honor. He is sovereign over all things yet loves us like the best of earthly fathers might! We want to be a people devoted to praying to God Our Father; we also want to honor Him by how we live, right? Let us pray to and live for Our Father who is in the heavenly realms, ruling over all, and bring Him honor today!  Photo by Derek Thomson on Unsplash

I read this today and found it helpful in fleshing out more of the family of faith dynamic: “In the family, I learn the complex choreography of love—what it means to give and take and share, to grow from obedience to responsibility, to learn, challenge, rebel, make mistakes, to forgive and be forgiven, to argue and make up, to win without triumph and know when graciously to lose. It’s where we acquire emotional intelligence, that delicate negotiation between the given and the chosen, the things I will and the things resistant to my will.” ​— Jonathan Sacks, English Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, and author (1948–2020), from Celebrating Life: Finding Happiness in Unexpected Places. 12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of...

I was listening in on a devotional today based on Luke 24, and I heard something I just had to share! It is recorded by Luke that 2 disciples were walking toward a small village called Emmaus on the day Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus then shows up next to them and asks them what they were discussing together. So then a conversation occurs where Jesus (whom they don't recognize) listens and then teaches them all about Scripture being fulfilled. You can read it again if you are interested, but here's what is curious for me...one of them is named Cleopas. Where have we heard that name before? Good question! If you look at John's good news account, chapter 19:25 lists Mary, the wife of Cleopas, as one of the women at the cross that day. So, could the other disciple on the road that day have been Mary? So, a married couple of disciples was visited by Jesus on their way home to Emmaus? This couple was likely processing the traumatic events of the weekend, and Jesus walked w...

As we settle into the Spring season here in the NW, I find myself enjoying the sunrises rolling in each day. Every new day is like a gift and an opportunity to thrive and be Jesus's kingdom people. The brighter mornings remind us of God's creation and the passing of the day before that we now can leave behind. And, maybe most important, each new day allows us to love one another as a testimony to our great Savior Jesus Christ, who first loved us! I'll leave you with a thoughtful prayer from commonprayer.net I read recently: "God of heaven and earth, help us to live in this world faithfully guided by your love, which manifests itself in our love toward one another. Prepare us for that great gettin’ up morning when your new world is fully revealed. Amen." We love because he first loved us. -1 John 4:19 Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash